Page 43 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Rosalind forgot to breathe. “He... paid?”

“The clerk was quite certain.”

Her thoughts lurched in a dozen directions at once.

Father had intended to return.

No sensible man committed such a sum of money only to vanish by choice the following day.

Unless he had never been given the opportunity.

The possibility struck with such force that Rosalind reached instinctively for the stone balustrade beside her.

For weeks she had lived beneath the crushing weight of uncertainty, trying not to imagine the worst.

Now, for the first time, another explanation presented itself. “Thank you.”

The words escaped before she could temper them.

William's expression softened almost imperceptibly. “No thanks are necessary.”

“They are.” She looked at him steadily. “You have given me something I have not had in weeks.”

Hope.

The word echoed silently through her mind.

“But I must verify it.”

William nodded without hesitation, as though he had expected nothing less. “I thought you would.”

“Mr. Hargreaves will speak with the auction house himself.”

“I think that wise.”

Rosalind offered him a faint, apologetic smile. “I hope you understand.”

A ghost of a smile answered hers. She had forgotten how easily he smiled. It transformed him, softening the careful reserve that had settled over him since they met again. For the briefest instant, she caught a glimpse of the young man she had known years ago.

Before she realized what she was doing, she smiled back. The realization unsettled her enough that she looked away first.

“If our positions were reversed, I should do exactly the same.”

Something shifted between them.

The questions remained exactly as they had been. William was still the last man known to have seen Father alive.

Yet, for the first time, Rosalind found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the quiet kindness before her with the man she had convinced herself must be hiding something. It would have been easier if he had been cold. Easier still had she not begun remembering all the reasons she had once liked him.

She wondered whether they might truly be searching for the same answers.

For tonight, that was enough.

By the time she, her mother, and Isabella finally departed the exhibition, Rosalind felt as though she had lived through several evenings rather than one. William's apology lingered beside his mother's reassurance.

The duchess’s advice refused to leave her thoughts. And now William's discovery threatened to unravel everything she had refused to believe about her father's disappearance.

She scarcely remembered the journey home.